


What if...?

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s07e13 Nightmare in Silver, Post Episode: s04e08-09 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Quadruple Drabble, Speculation, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara is impossible, so what if...?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What if...?

“D’you think I’m pretty?”

The Doctor knew it was a test question, a trust password of sorts.

Like Amy swearing on fish fingers and custard – whether or not that was really Amy then, or Flesh – on that day so long ago.

The day when he’d hurt River so terribly, flinging mistrust at her like a weapon.

Yes, right. Well…

So he answered Clara honestly, without thinking, knowing it was that trust password, a test to see if he was really _him_ and not the Cyber in his mind. He’d told her no.

No, she was too short, and bossy, and her nose was all funny.

But later…

Clara wasn’t _not_ pretty. She was… pretty _ish_.

He rather liked the bossy bits.

Shortness was relative.

And the funny nose.

River had – _had_ had, if… well, best not think about the Library – a funny nose, a little bump on it, just there, where he loved to tap it with one finger.

And all at once, as though the triple suns of Albarax Five were rising, he wondered.

What if Clara, mad, impossible Clara…

What if she was River Song? A River from after the Library, after being rescued… or more likely, he thought fondly, rescuing herself.

They looked nothing alike, but what of it? Time Lords often didn’t. A few had had distinguishing characteristics, like the Corsair’s tattoo, regardless of regeneration. The Doctor didn’t remember Mels’ nose, and he wondered if bossiness was a distinguishing characteristic; if madness could be – look at the Master, look at the Doctor himself – surely bossiness could.

It would explain so much.

Not everything, like why when Clara died she kept her own face, why she didn’t remember her other incarnations, why she didn’t regenerate on the spot, why she didn’t _feel_ like a Time Lord in the back of the Doctor’s head… but then she was _impossible_ , and so had River been, and, and…

Sexy didn’t like Clara though, and she adored River so… but wait.

If Clara _was_ River, gone wrong in time somehow, mightn’t the old girl react to her as she had to Jack Harkness in his wrongness after the Bad Wolf? She’d forgiven him for the wrongness eventually – it wasn’t his fault after all and…

…and it was possible.

There were so many (im)possibilities, so many odd timelines and quirks and similarities and differences and…

And _oh_ he wanted it to be true.

 

 


End file.
